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Lesson I learnt the first I did it: Dont go to Ash Lake without the Lordvessel. Those big shrooms are rather nasty.

I don't know what that is (trying to avoid the wiki unless absolutely necessary) but Ash Lake serves as a perfect interpolation of the adage of "digging oneself a deeper hole": first down through The Depths, then struggling through the abject dickery of Blighttown, which really wasn't so bad as a Pyromancer, to the furthest corner of a poisonous swamp, another mile down The Great Hollow, where I permanently lost half my health bar, and then a slow trudge across a massive expanse of beach to Ash Lake's second bonfire with a Hydra breathing down my neck... And at that point, I knew I wasn't getting back out.

On my new character, though, I'm at the same level I was before and dishing out twice as much damage with my Raw Iaito, thanks to better planning. I just beat Quelaag and someone seems to have put out the bonfire in Fire Link, so I'm struggling with the ghost clusterfuck that is New Londo right now. Dark Souls walks the fine line of difficulty attenuation so well that the repetition never feels boring, because there's still always that chance that the shitty zombies from the very first level will gang up on me and rip me to shreds the second I let my guard down — even when I kill them without a second thought 99% of the time. It makes me wonder how the inherently masochistic culture of multiplayer gaming can benefit from its ideas.

For the people playing/who played Risen: How viable is a straight up melee character? I had a lot of fun a while back building up to a mage, but lost momentum. Largely because there was a huge period where I Was basically grossly incompetent since I had to save up my skill points and what nots to learn magic, but was still expected to win staff fights against highly trained fighters...

But I also noticed that combat became a lot easier once I had the ability to shoot magic.

Its fairly easy, but magic gives you one huge advantage over melee. Magic lets you dump money into potions which means a faster grind at the end. Fighters don't have to stop as much though, so it might be a wash.

Mixed melee and magic is by far the most viable though, because fighters need heals and mages need to not die when someone gets close.

Did that. Joined a spider cult. Forsook that for a talking cat cult. Conquered Sen's, because fuck New Londo. Now I've got 80,000 souls orphaned in Anor Londo and I'm afraid the stress of rescuing them might make my heart explode. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but 80,000 souls isn't the sort of thing you just give away.

That's... An excellent idea. I've managed to keep my SL at 32 and I don't forsee too much trouble keeping it there to close out the game (I mean, I'll die a thousand times either way), though I may bump up to 35.

That's... An excellent idea. I've managed to keep my SL at 32 and I don't forsee too much trouble keeping it there to close out the game (I mean, I'll die a thousand times either way), though I may bump up to 35.

I'm no expert on the game but I am slightly further than you. I would recommend upgrading all weapons you like first and then worry about leveling. If you like, go for the fully upgraded ascended pyromancer flame as that makes the game ridiculously easy with some decent spells. It's very expensive though, I think going from +4 to +5 is in the region of 35,000 souls.

Also, if you give a shit ton of humanity to that spider woman below Quelaags lair, you will get an awesome spell. Not sure how much humanity you have to sacrifice but you are able to make pillars of fire erupt around you which pretty much kills anything that has surrounded you.

Their is certainly no shortage of things to waste souls on. I currently have 25,000 souls at risk at the start of Tomb of the Giants which is just enough for me to get another SL. Trouble is, I have to go on a massive walk from the previous bonfire in Catacombs to rescue them...not looking forward to attempting that.

I've never played March, but based on the strength of the other games in that list, I will try it tonight!
(Loved pOnd and Majesty of Colors; Don't Look Back I didn't love so much, but it brought me face-to-face with my inability to switch off my platformer jump-adjustment reflexes, which was mechanically much more interesting).

The Secret of Gargoyle Manor, a browser point-and-click adventure about retrieving your lost hat whatever the cost, is something you could play!

Tho it's not so much "lateral thinking" as it is a healthy dose of predicting the intents of the insane and being half-mental yourself.

Not a text-adventure staple, but for graphical adventure games, I get a warm glow every time I encounter one of those only-one-per-game "wait until the guard/secretary's animation loop has them glancing in the opposite direction before you can steal that item" puzzles and am able to instantly recognize it. (This usually occurs after previous thefts in the game required manufacturing all manner of distractions or devising a complicated system of levers and pulleys, thereby messing with all your larcenous expectations).

Along those lines, I just finished the King's Quest 2 Fan Remake.
/shudder
Their first remake was good, their third remake was alright and struck me as sufficiently King's Questy, but the second one? Brrrr. It was, as they say, dire. Complete reworking of most of the major characters and addition of a completely noncanon SERIES-SPANNING THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD MAIN VILLAIN (who sounds like a 17-year-old) leave me feeling rather uncharitable towards it. I feel like I need to play the original King's Quest 2 sometime to cleanse my palate.

There was a particularly comedic flash-forward I enjoyed in spite of myself, though. =P

In my post-"Romancing The Stones" depression I went and bought Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and am playing through that with Mrs. Berzee now. I will read the John Walker Eurogamer retrospective of it once I beat it.

Last edited by Berzee; 06-03-2013 at 03:28 PM.

The Secret of Gargoyle Manor, a browser point-and-click adventure about retrieving your lost hat whatever the cost, is something you could play!

I know there are still some of us out there; the old school Ultima Online veterans, one of my favorite gaming experiences ever. Probably still my favorite MMO ever.

A couple months ago something reignited my interest in the game and I went out just looking at info about where the game was at etc. I messed with the official demo and didn't like it as it didn't sync up with my memories of the game (as nostalgia is want to do it blurred my vision of whatever the current game is).

I found in my searching that there is a pretty vibrant community of player run servers out there for almost all the time frames of the game. For me my best times were the end of the vanilla game and into the Second Age expansion. I happened to also find a server that was just getting launched and offering a fresh start, as a player that was getting fresh back in it seemed like a good deal.

The server has been live for a couple weeks now and is off to a great start. It is well maintained and has had almost perfect uptime; the admin is active and has been very receptive to the player feedback on tweaking small things (loot tables, vendor prices etc).

If you are interested or ever had an interest in Ultima Online and want to get a taste of what it was like (in what I consider to be the best time period of the game) check outhttp://www.uoimmortalis.com/ and log on. Free to play and the D/L of the client shouldn't take more than a couple hours. You will find people on the forums and in game willing and able to help newcomers.

Not played UO in years, such fond memories :) It's a shame that MMO's decided to follow the EQ evolution path rather than UO's nice skill system ("Levels" always felt fake to me... You mean I'm now MUCH stronger than I was 5 seconds ago?)

Every time I try to go back to UO though I tend to bounce back off it, so I've consigned it to fond nostalgia :)

Yes, I update the below link frequently on a whisky fuelled rampage. I regret nothing.